In recent years, the use of mobile devices and wireless networks has become increasingly widespread. As the use of the mobile devices has increased, the number and quality of additional features made available with the devices has also dramatically increased. Modern networks and many mobile devices support wireless packet data communication to and from the mobile devices in addition to the more traditional voice and messaging features. The data communication capabilities offer users a wide range of desirable communication features, such as email, web surfing, application selection and downloading, media content selection and downloading, etc.
For many of the features or services, the mobile devices generally operate as clients with respect to service provider servers. With the client-server model, the mobile devices themselves typically initiate all data communications with the service provider servers. For example, wireless mobile devices now may include applications that provide useful and/or entertaining features for a user. Many of these features make information requests by communicating with a server. In some cases, the information requests may be periodic. For example, the mobile device may include a weather application that updates every 15 minutes; a news application that updates every 10 minutes; or a stock application that updates every 5 minutes. By making periodic updates, the user is provided with “up-to-date” information on their mobile device. However, each update requires that the mobile device send a request for the update to the respective server.
As a result, every time there is an information request by any application, the mobile device establishes a traffic (i.e., communication) channel with the server over a wireless network. Further, every time a traffic channel is established between a mobile device and the server, the mobile device, the associated subscriber account, and the requesting application is authenticated and/or validated. Accordingly, a substantial amount of signaling (i.e., “handshaking”) is typically performed between a mobile device and the network in order to facilitate each communication with a server. However, once the communication with the network is completed for a particular application of the mobile device, the traffic channel is released after a predetermined time (e.g., 7 seconds). Any subsequent update (i.e., communication with the same or a different server through the network) requires a traffic channel to be re-established, requiring significant overhead in terms of network and communication resources. As mobile devices are becoming “smarter” by introducing an ever increasing amount of features, the resource problem of having to repeatedly establish a traffic channel is further exacerbated.